Club welcomes ‘remarkable’ Captain Eric Winkle Brown

World famous former Navy officer and test pilot Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown was the guest of honour at the annual dinner of Bedford’s Probus Club.

The 95 year old is the most highly decorated living Fleet Air Arm pilot and holds records for having flown more types of aircraft that anyone else in history and the most aircraft carrier landings at 2,407.

During dinner at the Sharnbrook Hotel, he told of his experience immediately following the Second World War when he was charged by Winston Churchill to discover what he could about the rocket powered aircraft the German’s had been developing. During that time, as a fluent speaker of German, he was also given the grisly task of helping to liberate the Belsen Concentration Camp.